BERN Switzerland has sent 712 tons of frozen beef to North Korea as part of a bilateral aid program, a spokesman for the Swiss Development and Cooperation Directorate (DDC) said Thursday as quoted by AFP. The meat, which left Basel at the end of March, should arrive in North Korea in May after passing through the Chinese port of Dalian. Once it arrives in North Korea, DDC will be in charge of distributing the meat. North Korea is facing new food shortages that could become as bad as 1996 and 1997, the peak of the near-famine conditions of the past six years, according to the UN World Food Program (WFP).